8 Responses to It’s Bandai!

Talk about coming out of left field… Kadokawa Pictures USA’s role in all this was guessed early on, but Bandai? Not only have they been pretty quiet on the licensing front lately, they generally stick to series which their parent company was involved with (through Sunrise or Bandai Visual). AFAIK Bandai Japan had nothing to do with the creation of Melancholy–they certainly don’t appear anywhere in the credits.

The website says “released by Kadokawa Pictures USA and distributed by Bandai Entertainment”, but it’s anyone’s guess what that means. Who will be handling the dubbing? Subtitling? DVD authoring? It sounds similar to the arrangement for Ghost in the Shell: STAND ALONE COMPLEX, which was licensed by Bandai but distributed by Manga Entertainment, and in that case Bandai did almost everything except the actual retail distribution. Guess we’ll find out soon…

Why would you think it wouldn’t be dubbed? You can argue about the exact percentages, but dub watchers represent a large portion–probably the majority–of North American anime fans. Why would any company with an ounce of sense risk alienating so many potential customers?

That said, I’m not too enthusiastic about the casting myself, assuming that the ladies in the video are the actual dub voice actresses and not just random Kadokawa and Bandai employees. Patricia Lee has some anime voice acting experience, but she’s never played the lead character in any series, let alone one as dynamic as Haruhi. Haruka Inoue and Akiyo Yamamoto, who play Mikuru and Yuki respectively, don’t even have that–ANN has no info for either of them, and a Google search for their names and “actress” turns up nothing of interest.

Wait, there’s a female seiyuu named You Inoue who’s been credited as “Haruka Inoue”…

Yes but that’s Japanese…. I am not sure about Andrew, but it’s the North American VA’s I’m concerned about. Matching Aya Hirano’s (Haruhi) performance would be next to impossible; pulling off both hers and Sugita Tomokazu’s (Kyon) would require a miracle, or intervention by the unconcious goddess herself. The one in the promo wasn’t even close on voice, let alone mannerisms (not that it’s live action anyway). Way too self-concious.

Actually, I’m not sure why I thought/hoped that. Mostly because I can’t IMAGINE an english-language VA being able to nail down Haruhi’s personality without coming off sounding like a hyperactive grrrrrrrrrl.